It wasn't the siege that brought the fortress to a sudden end. A robust
defensive hall of traps protected the front entrance, and there was more than
enough supplies to simply wait it out if needed.
It wasn't even the timing, though it was bad: said defensive hall had just been
disassembled to make way for a new, more deadly, lava flooding chamber, which
itself was not yet finished. But dwarves are nothing if not industrious, and
with a flurry of activity the pumpstacks and tunnels were completed, and the
militia was outfitted and stationed behind the grand front doors, ready to swarm
out and finish off anything that managed to escape a burning death.
The fatal blow to his beloved home was, in Tekkud's opinion, one of the gravest
of sins a self respecting dwarf could commit: sloppy engineering.
The invaders were coming, the defenses were down, and everyone was rushing, and
so perhaps it was inevitable that mistakes were made. Not many, just a few, here
and there, but they were enough. A lava tunnel that was squeezed too close to
the inner entry hall. A diagonal cut that left an unnoticed gap. A grate made
from material with too low a melting point.
When the pump levers were heaved, the torrent of molten rock shot up from the
depths and raced along the tunnel to the entrance. But at the last moment, the
flow split, bursting out on both sides of the great entrance. Unsuspecting
militia-dwarves suddenly caught fire, while outside the reduced flow allowed
many of the invaders to leap back to safety. The cries of a lava leak inside the
fortress caused distraction and panic, the pumps stopped, the flow ceased, and
the tunnel carved to spew death out of the fortress lay open, a melted puddle of
grate like a doormat before it, inviting death in.
With the majority of the trained fighters already dying or dead, the rest of the
fortress fell swiftly, but horribly.
Tekkud was in the far depths of the fortress when it all happened, working,
ironically, on fortifications to prevent invasions from the third cavern
layer. By the time he realized what was happening, it had already happened, the
fortress was fallen, there was no one to save. There was, however, his numb mind
echoed to him, everyone to avenge. That echo was Tekkud's last sane thought for
a long, long time.
Excavations are the core of a fortress, life and fortune scooped from the
unyielding stone. Strike the earth! Truly that is the fortress' heartbeat. And
in all those excavations, amidst the grand halls, royal bedrooms, endless
stairs, there are leftovers. Ore veins tapped and sealed off. Temporary staging
areas for expansion. Tunnels to fill or empty reservoirs. Bedrooms no longer
grand enough, halls no longer large enough. It was amongst these forgotten areas
that Tekkud lived, chipping as steadily away at his revenge as he did any wall
of granite.
First were the plugs. Walls swiftly and quietly constructed from blocks arranged
in hidden, newly dug staging rooms, cutting off the caverns. Reservoirs emptied
and sealed to foil the rare invader who might be able to swim. Finally the cave
in of the grand entrance; both the final act sealing the invaders inside, and
the long overdue burial of the fortress' militia. And then, simply waiting.
Tekkud foraged in the caverns and sipped from ponds and aquifers, as the
invaders depleted the food stores in the fortress, and slowly began to wither.
It was slow and gruesome, Tekkud knew from spyholes he had carved around the
fortress, and considered it his duty to stay and watch it play out to the very
end, a vengeance observed in the name of the fallen.
Time passed, and eventually it was done. Nothing moved in the fortress, save the
clouds of miasma. And Tekkud, of course. Not that he moved much. It was done,
over. The work was complete, the great catacomb finished. The steady fire that
fueled his revenge dimmed to an ashen cinder, Tekkud's spirit finally put to
rest in a vast memorial. An empty creature crawled off into the caverns, to join
its scuttering and creeping bretherin.
Fate, however, plays strange games. Things long buried have a tendency to rise,
and the winds of fortune can stoke the dimmest embers. And lo, a creature has
arrived at the gates of the Tournament. A creature that was once a dwarf, but has
forgotten what that means. A creature whose heart once shattered in grief for
its companions, but now knows no companion but the shadow, the echo, and oddly,
a single pigtail fiber sock it wears upon its hand. A creature in whom the
embers of a dead vengeance have been blown into a new flame of violence. It calls
itself Tekkud, but it is not the Tekkud that was, but something birthed from
him.
arrived.
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Topic: Dwarf Fortress Gladiator Tournament IX (Read 13861 times)